Andys Real Guide to Thailand

Calling into Thailand

The IDD Code for Thailand is 66. So a number in Bangkok(02) would be; 00-66-2-xxxxxx

Calling out of Thailand

The international access code is 001, so to call the UK (+44) London(0207), for example; 001-44-207-xxxxxx

[ See also International calls ]

Phone Companies

	The publicly owned mobile phone company, Top coverage, with charges to match. Using an AIS contract service with foreign phones is problematic. See Below...
	Communication Authority of Thailand. Handles all international calls and the Postal service. WWW site includes a Thai Postcode directory (less useful than you might think...).
	Private mobile phone company, lower roaming charges. Good coverage
	Digital Phone Company (DPC); Private company, cheap, providing GSM on 1800Mhz (ONLY). Coverage not great, but generally ok in most urban areas. This network does not handle international SMS.
	Pay as you go mobile service using the AIS network. Foreign phones no problem here.
	Telephone Organisation of Thailand. The publicly owned company providing fixed lines. No competition outside Bangkok.

Mobiles

If have a roaming subscription you should be able to use your 900/1800Mhz GSM mobile immediately as AIS (the public phone company) has roaming agreements with most countries. Coverage is excellent even upcountry. You need to watch roaming charges however (when someone calls you from whilst you are aboard), and I'd recommend manually selecting network "DTAC" or "WP-1800", as these are about 25% cheaper. 

There is no support for analogue mobiles or GSM using 1900Mhz - the US Standard.

If you're staying a while you might wish to consider getting a Thai sim card for your own mobile.

If you want a contract type service, I would recommend either DTAC or DPC - plugin and go basically.

AIS however are still following the strict letter of the law. Which is basically that you can't use a foreign purchased phone without first paying import duty on your phone and AIS still insists on seeing this documentation. AIS used to block sims in non-approved phones, however at the time of writing (24/10/02) this no longer seems to be taking place...

A recently introduced service is One-2-Call, which is a pay-as-you-go type service. Simply buy a card in shop (500baht) and top it up occasionally. Unfortunately the user manual is only in Thai, and the English version of their web site doesn't actually work yet. Perversely the entire automated part of the system ( SMS & computer generated voice commands ) are in English....

SMS (Text Messaging) does generally work internationally (not via DPC), and is pretty cheap.

BTW Handsets are not cheap in Thailand, in fact they're probably cheaper in Europe ! There is however a thriving black-market in both legitimate 2nd-hand phone, and not so legit ones...

House phones

If you're considering buying or renting property in Thailand and a phone line is important to you, read on...

About 5 years ago the Thai government was investing heavily in communications infrastructure - roads, phones etc. This is no longer the case, their current "push" being on education and health. The upshot of this is that whilst the existing phone infrastructure is in good condition, it doesn't expand at anything like the rate it needs to given the double digit growth of the economy. The one exception being Bangkok where there is considerable competition amongst phone companies.

Outside of Bangkok you are likely stuck with the government controlled Telephone Organisation of Thailand (TOT). TOT does not have large amounts of cash to invest - partly because their charge rates are kept low by the government. Thus out in the provinces a phone number tends to be a precious and treasured commodity.

If you are buying a new house make sure that you have it written into the sales contract that a phone line is to be provided to the property. I learnt this the hard way and only got a phone line after more than 2 years by bribing someone in the phone company 20,000baht The guy subsequently lost his job.....
[ No, I don't feel in the slightest bit guilty ]

Private sellers tend to take their number, and hence the line with them.

Landlords renting property rarely include a telephone, especially for Farang. Farang have a nasty reputation of buggering off without paying their (large) international phone bill, thus leaving the landlord to pick up the tab. Expect to have to leave a large (typically 6000baht) deposit with the Landlord just for the phone....

If you're forced to negotiate directly with TOT I would earnestly advise you not to believe verbal promises from anyone....

International Calls

Outgoing calls to Europe and North America are generally charged at the extortionate rate of 30Baht/Min. You can make considerable savings (30-40%) by using the 'Efone' service. Basically instead of the standard 001 international access code use 009 on a mobile, or 001809 on a landline. This also works with pay-phones.

International calls rates are the same for landlines and mobiles.

A number of calling card systems are in use.

Phone bills

Internet

The internet has been slow to take off in Thailand and there is a distinct class gap between Internet aware and non-aware people. Basically, the tiny minority of the population with College grade educations use it daily, and the vast bulk of the population barely understand what it is. To be fair to the government they are on this problem and are endeavouring to get computers into schools and have just started a scheme which allows parents to purchase good & cheap computers at 0% interest.

Please do not confuse street wise bar-girls with the bulk of the population. These girls are likely to ask for your email address before your phone number - because its a much cheaper way for them to ask you for money.

You will find Internet Cafe's in all the major towns and cities, and the tourist areas are littered with them. Charges generally around 1 or 2 Baht/min, but do look out for a minimum charge.

The cheapest way to get onto the Internet is via a CAT phone office. Purchase of a 100 Baht smart card gets you 2 hours on one of the booth machines - these are also starting to appear in places like service stations, rail stations and airports.

That URL is www.cat.net.th

Up to this year (2003) the competition was pretty hot in the ISP market however after several years of throat-cutting price competion one major player went under and the two biggest companies ( Loxinfo and CS Internet ) merged. A typical 20 hour / 3 month pay-as-you go package costs 280 Baht from CS Internet - still pretty cheap.

Tip: If you do want to buy some ISP-type service check that they support the '1222' access number run by ToT. The call charges on this are 3 Baht/call, rather than 1 Baht/min for local calls.